IT WAS MY FATHER By Kehinde Oluwatomi

I heard my stepmother called me out of my sleep. It was 6:00am in the morning. I knew as at that point that I was in for another punishment. My stepmother was a replicate of the devil. She was five inches tall, had a very thick voice that could scare the devil away. She was in her late thirties and had two children already; Ifeoluwa and Olaoluwa. She is very beautiful too.

Moyin!

I heard her voice again. This time, I was already awake and expecting what would happen next. I was 15 years old. My mother was late due to some reasons I can’t possibly say. I stayed with my father and my stepmother whom he married seven months after my mother’s death. Ifeoluwa was her first child and I was 10 years older than her. Later she gave birth to Olaoluwa who was two and a half years old.

Splash

She poured a bucket full of water on me as she entered my room. I hadn’t stood up to the realization of what happened when she slapped me suddenly. I fell on the floor as I wept profusely not listening to her early morning rants. I should have woken up as early as 4:30am but because the previous day was a Sunday and we had lots of visitors who came around to visit. I had a lot of work to do in serving them and likewise a lot of clean ups to do when they all left. I prepared dinner and went ahead to finish up my school work before finally going to bed very late that night. It wasn’t the first time we would be having streams of visitors but because I couldn’t cheat nature, I slept longer hours than I should.

She left the room angrily after saying a lot of things I could not comprehend but I knew it would be more trouble if I didn’t stand up and get to my morning duties. The chores seemed to take forever but I finished them anyway and dressed up to go to school.

I was in my SS3 class we were preparing ahead of our final exams. School was tedious too but I had no choice than to cope even though it wasn’t easy for me. Every day, I looked forward to going to school because I was only free within those hours from the destructive claws of my step mother.

My father didn’t help matters too because he was like the lion encouraging my mother who continued haunting me. I have a lot of heartbreaking and painful memories of my father. Memories that haunt me each day and sometimes I feel like running away forever from them. Sometimes I wish my mother was still alive to comfort me through all that my father made me go through.